Hello- My band members have a difference of opinion about the timing of some instrumental stabs on Cheap Trick’s “Ain’t That A Shame”.
There are sets of two instrumental stabs that precede the vocal verse several times in the song.
Can i get the opinion here of whether:
The two stabs are square on the downbeat of Beats 2 and Beats 3?
Or do they precede the downbeat of Beats 2 and Beats 3?
If so, by how much? (The same amount of prematurity for each beat, or different)?
Here is the official youtube video (not posted by an unauthorized person). It starts just before the first time the two instrumental stabs occur, at approximately 1 min 16 sec:
Other times the stabs occur:
Approximately 1 min 38 sec
Approximately 2 min 21 sec
Approximately 3 min 2 sec
Approximately 3 min 21 sec
Thanks for any help in deciding this - we want to cover this in the most powerful way possible!
What I’d do is pull the Audio into Cubase, make the Track height big, zoom way in, & turn off snap. You should be able to visually ID where on the timeline various sounds seem to be located. Then move your cursor around by small amounts & playback while noting what gets cut off at the start. If the two are offset you’ll find a start position where you hear the 2nd sound (specifically the attack) but not the first. But if they are in the same spot they will always both sound.
None of the above.
Seems to me the first “stab” is one sixteenth after beat 1 and the second “stab” is on beat 3. (Allowing for the “feel” of an actual live performance.)
When I first played this video there was no sound. Then I realised my monitors were switched off. So. It’s possible I was listening to something else…
Thanks, @raino , but I think in this case that will not help since all the instruments in the band are playing the stab/attack - no one is early or late relative to someone else. The perception of earliness I have is based solely on my foot-tap metronome of the measures in question, carried over from the previous measures.
Please correct me if I’m conceptually wrong with the above!
Next: If they played to a grid, I could establish that grid in Cubase, and then see if the stabs are early or not. But they didn’t (recorded in 1980 at the latest), so even if they are earlier than the grid I develop, one could always claim it was just natural variation in timing.
Would you take a listen please, and LMK your thoughts - do you think their downbeats are “right on the grid” (haha, but there is no click track), or prematurely played for effect?
If the first stab wasn’t syncopated as @Googly_Shakespeare correctly identified it would sound like a massive Santa Claus stomping twice on the floor
@Googly_Shakespeare Without a count-in one automatically tends to ignore the first HiHat hit and to locate the first stab on the downbeat instead with the second stab being the syncopated one preceding the 3rd beat. That was my first reaction, anyways
Hence the screenshot. I could have made the mp3 clip a bit longer, I suppose… @alexis Still waiting for my post to be marked as the Solution! (Hint, hint, wink, wink, ,nudge, nudge!)
@Googly_Shakespeare - I seem to not have the “solution” check box available to me, I don’t know if it’s a computer issue or I need to prove more trustiness, or find a shrubbery, perhaps. Apologies in any case!
If someone is able to reach in here and make it so - "As the OP, I hereby declare it is my desire to label this wonderful answer as, yes indeed, ‘The Solution’ "!! Thank you very much
It’s The Lounge - that feature is not available here. I suppose the admin didn’t envisage issues/problems being raised in this sub-forum.
Just glad I could help.
